President Trump tweeted in response, “Very disappointed with General Motors and their CEO, Mary Barra, for closing plants in Ohio, Michigan and Maryland. Nothing being closed in Mexico & China. The U.S. saved General Motors, and this is the THANKS we get! We are now looking at cutting all @GM subsidies... for electric cars.”

“Until now, it appeared President Donald Trump had done a good job of energizing the American economy, specifically when it came to jobs. Legitimately or not, he has been praised for record low unemployment -- now at 3.7%... That Trump's economic policies are in any way causing manufacturing plants to close and jobs to be eliminated could be a stake in the heart of the Trump presidential experiment."

CNN

While “it is largely true that Trump himself is not directly responsible for the layoffs, which will impact 14,000 workers in Ohio, Michigan, Maryland and Canada, and reflect complicated decisions that appear rooted in lagging sales... the problem for Trump... is that Trump has constantly asserted that such industrial job losses won’t occur on his watch."

Washington Post

But “even a competent president would not be able to replace all the factory jobs that were lost, because most of them didn't actually move overseas, as is the common refrain. Rather, they were automated. That's why U.S. factories are producing twice as much as they did in 1984, but have shed over 5 million jobs since 1987. That's also why Trump's solution, to impose heavy tariffs on our trading partners, has not worked and has in fact killed more jobs by making everything more expensive."

Salon

“What GM and every competitive American company does is follow the customers… last quarter General Motors sold more vehicles in China than in the United States. Making cars in America for export to China would render them ‘structurally unprofitable’... It would be helpful if Trump recognized that being president doesn’t make him economy czar... he can’t force companies to continue to operate factories that aren’t profitable."

Chicago Tribune

“As 14,000 people and their families fretted looming unemployment, with Christmas just weeks away, investors celebrated. GM stock closed up 5 percent [on Monday]. This points to the growing disconnect between what’s good for Wall Street and what’s good for Main Street... Monday underscored that, perhaps now more than ever, what’s good for GM is not necessarily what’s good for America."

Washington Post

From the Right

The right accepts that the cuts were driven by economic necessity, and argues that potential government intervention would be harmful for workers in the long run.

“GM is halting production at plants that make sedans including the Chevy Cruze, Impala and Volt hybrid. Americans are buying more trucks and SUVs amid lower gas prices and better fuel efficiency. Small cars make up a third of U.S. vehicle sales compared to half in 2012...

Mr. Trump thinks his trade machinations can overrule the realities of the marketplace, but he’s [wrong]... if he intervenes to make GM less competitive, Mr. Trump will merely hurt more workers.”

“The politics of these closures will damage both parties... Democrats led by Barack Obama went all-in on a government bailout and politically driven bankruptcy settlement for GM in 2009, which cost American taxpayers billions of dollars... More acute, however, will be Donald Trump’s claims on economic boom times as the American auto industry sheds jobs on a well, industrial scale."

to the United States. The Envision is the first car built in China for the U.S. market. Last year, Americans purchased 42,000 Envisions...

The basic architecture of the Envision is the same as the soon-to-be late Chevy Volt, which was built at the Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant that the company announced would close by the end of next year."